


The Last Man

by o2doko



Category: Frankenstein - Nick Dear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-09
Updated: 2011-05-09
Packaged: 2017-10-19 04:56:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o2doko/pseuds/o2doko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the first leg of his journey to Scotland, Victor thinks about the unexpected reunion with his creation and what lies ahead for both of them now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Man

Rain slicked the blood-rust of the tracks beneath its wheels as the train pushed its way through the night, and from where he sat huddled near the window he imagined he could smell it; the sulfuric wisp of scent which sprang to mind with the coppery tang of tasted blood. Beneath him, the solid _click-clack_ of the car’s progression was as steady and rhythmic as the thunder was not, like the muted heartbeat beneath the cadence of a passionate conversation – as though nature herself had begun to mimic the chaotic babble rattling around inside his head.

 _Full of sound and fury_ , he though absently, dragging a fingernail against the slightly raised lettering on the cover of the book resting in his lap. _Have you read that too, I wonder?_

It was late. The absence of other passengers in the dining car assured him of this, though he’d long since ceased to mind the hours as they bled away into the lengthening storm. The lamps were muted, the reflection gazing moodily back at him from the roiling darkness a vague outline of chin and nose and eyes which occasionally flickered with unilluminated light. He should have been sleeping, he knew; there would be little enough sleep in the months to come. Or, barring that, he should have been studying. The satchel occupying the seat beside him bulged faintly with the books he’d hastily collected that morning before setting out, tomes of science dog-eared and cracked and covered in the erratic scrawl of his impatient hand. He knew them well. They were the only companions he’d wanted or needed for this journey, and yet, in this twilight of new beginning the favored place between his chemical-stained fingers was occupied by a different volume entirely.

This book was supple and slender, in immaculate condition and untouched by the overflow of his seething thoughts. He’d pilfered it from Elizabeth’s room just before departure without asking, spending the span of minutes he should have reserved for farewells in locating it. He had not opened it yet. Like the books in the satchel, he already knew what the pages said; but unlike those other volumes, he did not know what this one would tell him. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know.

Still staring through the ghost of his reflection and into the storm, seeing neither, Victor continued to trace the book’s title with the pad of one finger, feeling veins and bones in the braille-like lettering. He was the creator. He had provided the steady rhythm of a solid heartbeat, the blood and the sinew and the teeth and the eyes, but he had not provided _this_ ; that wildcat snarl of passionate thunder, unexpected and powerful in the shadows of that godforsaken forest, had come from somewhere else.

 _I liked it_ , the monster had said. Victor hadn’t. And though he’d promised perfection of form – of beauty and grace unsurpassed – he wondered what would lie beneath vein and bone this time. Could he paint pathos along the curves of an ivory ribcage? Was it his responsibility to carve love and heartache into the tube of each exquisite ventricle, press the smoke-curls of passion and longing into the hollows of knee and elbow? Could he endow this latest creation with the abilities he himself did not possess? Did he want to?

And would he name her this time, graft upon her the identity she would not have the chance to find for herself? He had unthinkingly denied this courtesy to the other – the other whom he’d thought of before as _It_ , and which he now only thought of as _Mine_.

There were no answers in the thrum of the train or the shadows of the storm. The books at his side provided maps of a sort, but he’d extended beyond their carefully delineated frontiers. _And here there be monsters_. He should have felt excitement; hadn’t it always been his ambition, to chart new territory where none had walked before?

Settling his lanky frame deeper into his seat, the scientist bit down thoughtfully against the lush curve of a wind-burnt lip, tuning his focus to the sharp metallic sting of blood. Then he flipped open the cover of the book waiting patiently on his knees, and in the rain-laced darkness he started to read of all there was to be lost.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm currently accepting commissions; see my [gig page](http://fiverr.com/users/o2doko/gigs/write-an-original-5000-word-story-in-any-genre) for more information.


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